Image Capturing and Processing

Innovations in industrial machine vision are constantly trying to further increase performance levels while opening up new technologies to the mainstream. At the same time, there is also an increasing demand for industrial real-time capabilities of vision processes in order to be executed within a fixed minimal timeframe.

Kithara RealTime Suite adresses these key issues and enables the development of cost-efficient as well as performance-efficient machine vision solutions for industrial fields such as automated quality assurance, robotics, autonomous cars or medical technology. This includes image capture, image processing as well as subsequent control reactions all in the same real-time context.

For industrial machine vision two camera standards have proven to be particularly trendsetting and future-proof—GigE Vision® and USB3 Vision®. Both standards feature a similar set of benefits that make them highly suitable for a vast range of industrial fields and applications. Besides high data rates, both interfaces can also be optimally used for almost any task due to inexpensive and interchangeable standard hardware. Both interfaces can be configured with GenICam 2.0 which allows for the utilization of default functions as well as access to manufacturer-specific features.

Task and solution

In machine vision, Windows is often essential, due to most vision applications running primarily on Windows OS. However, without real-time capabilities, developers are usually confronted with certain issues:

Individual data packets of GigE Vision or USB3 Vision cameras are not transferred, therefore, images are corrupted or only partial transferred.

The reaction time is delayed by the Windows application and is therefore, too long and not deterministic, thus causing issues for subsequent processes.

An appication example for the Camera Module of Kithara RealTime Suite is quality assurance in the packaging industry. In this field the assessment whether a product meets the specification or not has to take place in a very short amount of time in order to remove an unsuitable workpiece from the production line. The Camera Module of Kithara RealTime Suite solves this task impressively. To avoid the loss of data packets the Camera Module provides large-sized memory buffer and real-time network or XHCI drivers. The reaction to received GigE Vision or USB3 Vision images immediately takes place in a real-time context within a few microseconds. This also allows for immediate control reactions by triggering subsequent real-time tasks.

The need for high-performance real-time systems in machine vision is especially apparent with high resolution images at high frame rates, where regular Windows functions bottleneck the processing of incoming data packages.

Real-time machine vision with the modular system of Kithara RealTime Suite consists of the following components:

Camera Module

The Camera Module serves as a functional module for capturing image data of industrial cameras according to GigE Vision® or USB3 Vision® standards in realtime. It provides all necessary functions for detection and management and for creating real-time streams.

Large buffer memory along with real-time network drivers reliably prevent any loss of data packets. The reaction to incoming GigE Vision or USB3 Vision images takes place instantly in the context of the real-time environment within a few microseconds. An immediate real-time task can be triggered, in order to execute an instant control reaction.

Thanks to the real-time drivers, the Camera Module allows for maximal data throughputs according to interface and system configuration, even up to the theoretical maximum. For the real-time processing of image date, refer to the Vision Module.

The results of the image processing can be given to the process even in the real-time context without any delay, e.g. over EtherCAT® or CANopen®. Accordingly, automation solutions can be easily combined with several other functions within Kithara RealTime Suite.

GenICam features

set and retrieve all accessible camera features like image format, pixel format, frame rate, exposure time and more

Image Processing

write your own machine vision application using libraries like Halcon

image processing libraries are loaded to kernel mode

processing is done in real-time

do operations like: matching, segmentation, 3D matching, OCR and more

Vision Module

Image processing with Halcon or OpenCV in real-time

Common

Features

The Vision Module complements the RealTime Module and supports industrial cameras compliant with the GigE Vision® standard and thus enables an immediate control reaction when the image has been captured and received by the PC. The widely used image processing library Halcon of MVTec from Munich/Germany is suitable for further processing of image data in real-time*, so that the implementation of powerful solutions is possible. Alternatively, the open library OpenCV can also be used.

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